Adaptation at Higher Level: The same two kinds of adaptation as SL, with different real cases: the Northern Sea Route, Venice's MOSE barrier, Amsterdam's floating homes, Brazil's dengue vaccine, Florida's building code and Israel's desalination. At HL, judge adaptation through economics and justice: who pays, and who is protected.
Practise this as you read
- Give two structural and two non-structural examples.
- Judge a strategy: cost, equity and maladaptation.
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Living with a changing climate: Even if every emission stopped today, the climate would keep changing for decades. Adaptation prepares people for that.
The points to remember
- Adaptation: reducing the harmful effects of climate change and making the most of any positive ones.
- It is needed because some warming is locked in: CO2 stays in the air for centuries.
- The oceans have stored heat that will keep warming the climate, and impacts are already happening.
- Reactive adaptation responds to impacts already felt; anticipatory prepares for expected ones.
- Planned adaptation is decided by governments; autonomous is done by people on their own.
- Positive effects can be used too: longer growing seasons, new crops, new sea routes.
Remember it as: Mitigation stops the fire; adaptation is the smoke alarm and the sprinklers.
Real example: as Arctic sea ice melts, the Northern Sea Route along Russia's Arctic coast stays open for more weeks each summer. Ships between Asia and Europe can save thousands of kilometres: a positive consequence some countries are adapting to use.
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The guide splits adaptation into two kinds. The first is to build something.
Structural adaptation
- Structural adaptation = building physical infrastructure.
- Flood defences: sea walls, levees, dykes and storm-surge barriers hold back the water.
- Desalination plants turn seawater into fresh water where droughts cut supplies.
- Movable infrastructure: barriers that rise only in storms, floating or movable buildings.
- Also: reservoirs and rainwater tanks, green roofs and shaded streets against heat.
- Usually expensive, so richer places build more of it.
Real example: Venice's MOSE barrier has 78 yellow gates that lie on the seabed and rise only when a high tide threatens; it was first raised on 3 October 2020. In Amsterdam's Schoonschip neighbourhood, floating homes rise and fall with the water.
Change what people do: The second kind builds nothing big. It changes farming, health care, laws and plans, and is often much cheaper.
Non-structural adaptation
- Non-structural adaptation = changing how people act: practices, rules and knowledge.
- Farming practices: drought-resistant crops, new planting dates, drip irrigation, mixed crops, agroforestry.
- Vaccination against diseases that spread as the climate warms, e.g. dengue and malaria.
- Land zoning: rules that stop homes being built on floodplains or eroding coasts.
- Building codes: new buildings must resist storms, floods and heat.
- Also: early warning systems, heat alerts, managed retreat, wetland restoration.
Real example: in February 2024 Brazil became the first country to offer a dengue vaccine in its public health system, as warmer, wetter weather spread the mosquitoes that carry the disease. After Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Florida brought in a statewide building code (2002) so new homes resist hurricane winds.
Adaptation or mitigation?: A green roof can be both. In an adaptation answer, say how it reduces the impact: it cools the building in a heatwave. Saying it saves energy makes it mitigation.
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Adaptation can protect some people and harm others. Judge each strategy against five tests.
Is it a good adaptation?
- Effectiveness: does it reduce the harm, and for how long?
- Cost: can the place afford it? Poorer countries often cannot.
- Equity: does it protect everyone, or only those who can pay? (environmental justice)
- Sustainability: will it still work as the climate keeps changing?
- Maladaptation: does it cause new problems, here or somewhere else?
Fair adaptation
- Flood defences protect a poor neighbourhood
- Desalination: more water, lower prices
- Drought crops: food for everyone
- Vaccines: health for the whole population
Unfair or harmful
- Defences only for rich districts
- Water priced out of reach
- A sea wall moves erosion next door
- Poor countries cannot afford it
Real example: Israel now gets most of its household water from desalination plants on the Mediterranean coast. Droughts no longer cause shortages, but the plants use a lot of electricity, much of it from gas, and release salty brine back into the sea.
Environmental justice: Name the strategy, then say who it helps and how: 'Drought-resistant crops give food security to the whole population, including the poorest farmers.'
What do people think?: Before a school or town spends money on a climate solution, it can find out what people think with a survey.
Designing a survey on a proposed solution
- Start with a clear question about one proposed solution, e.g. solar panels on the school roof.
- Choose a representative sample: enough people, from every group (year groups, staff, parents).
- Use closed questions (a five-point scale from 'strongly agree' to 'strongly disagree') to count.
- Add one open question ('Why?') to learn the reasons behind the views.
- Word questions neutrally, and test them on a few people first (a pilot).
- Show the results as a bar chart or percentages, and say what they suggest.
Real example: the second Peoples' Climate Vote, in 2024, surveyed about 75,000 people in 77 countries, speaking 87 languages. 80% said they wanted their country to take stronger action on climate change.
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How this comes up: Paper 1, from the resource booklet: suggest two ways farming in a named region could adapt.
In Vietnam's Mekong Delta, rising sea level and lower river flows in the dry season let salty water reach further inland, damaging rice fields.
Suggest two ways in which agriculture in the Mekong Delta could be adapted to deal with the impacts of climate change.
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